For anyone who ever sought to directly engage a practitioner of the visual arts, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is offering the chance to do just that.

As part of its springtime programming slate, the west Midtown venue will host twin series of intimate conversations of the sort — aptly titled “Contemporary Talks” and “Studio Artist Talks.”

Photographer and hometown product Stephanie Dowda is among those to be featured in the latter lineup.

“I think artists really have an interesting and special way of viewing the world and talking about their experience,” said Dowda. “I think that how they translate those thoughts, ideas and experiences into something physical is always an interesting process.

“And, I think it always does give everyone more insight into what this work is about and why it exists and why it might be important now, tomorrow and into the future.”

Dowda will discuss her current exhibition “Tophophilia” — on display at Get This Gallery in Midtown — in the center’s lecture hall the evening of April 24.

The exhibit is the latest chapter in the Midtown native and Georgia State University alum’s burgeoning career. Its title is derived from an obscure geography theory centering on the exchange of emotion and memory between human beings and natural places.

“I had been photographing landscapes for a number of years,” Dowda said. “As I was going out to different areas, I started having [a range of] sensations that were sort of unexplainable. … It didn’t really make sense why I was sensing these different things, which led me to research that possibility and [‘Tophophilia’].”

Dowda is just one of several artists and other creative minds who will hold court at the center in the coming weeks.

Painter Deborah Kass will serve as the centerpiece of a Contemporary Talks session Thursday. The Andy Warhol disciple’s work can be seen in the galleries of prestigious venues like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

David Platzker, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is scheduled to host his own session May 17.

“As with all of our artist talks or Contemporary Talks programming, the intimate opportunity to hear from a practitioner in his/her field directly reinforces and drives our mission to continually present a diverse cultural landscape for artists, arts professionals and the arts-interested public,” said center spokesperson Rachel Reese.

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